At the Arctic Ring of Life at the Detroit Zoo, visitors watch the polar bears' underwater action. / 2011 photo by ERIC SEALS/Detroit Free Press

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The Detroit Free Press Editorial Board

Voter-approved tax money to support the Detroit Zoo and the Detroit Institute of Arts is safe again, or so it seems. A bill that would prevent local governments from siphoning the money for other purposes is en route to Gov. Rick Snyder’s desk; his spokeswoman says the governor is likely to sign it.

This is excellent news for both the zoo and the museum. As the Free Press reported in January, a handful of southeast Michigan communities kept about $756,000 generated by the zoo millage since 2008; those communities had considered doing the same with tax revenue generated by the DIA millage approved by voters last fall.

A technicality in the way the millage proposals were worded allowed some communities — among them Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, Northville, Grosse Pointe, Taylor and Van Buren Township — to capture a portion of the increased tax revenue generated by the millage via special tax districts, called tax increment finance authorities or TIFs. Downtown development authorities are TIFs.

The presumption is that private investment and development will increase the value of the area; a TIF captures a portion of the resulting tax revenue to either secure financing for projects in the district or to fund Downtown Development Authority operations, generally public improvements that make a downtown area more attractive for investment.

Because those special millages increased the tax generated in DDA districts, and because the millage language didn’t specifically exclude millage-generated taxes from the TIF capture, the communities weren’t breaking the law, a Wayne County Circuit Court judge ruled last week.

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But voters’ intent in approving both special levies was clear: to fund two beloved institutions.

No doubt, preserving the millage-generated funds for the institutions Michiganders voted to support is the right thing to do.

But it’s also worth considering the state of local government funding in Michigan.

As property values have dropped, so has the tax revenue generated by tax increment financing districts and captured by local DDAs; the fall in property taxes has had a devastating impact on communities’ general funds, too.

And property taxes aren’t the only source of local government funding that’s declined in the last decade: Between 2001 and 2011, state revenue sharing payments to communities dropped by $4.2 billion. The Legislature also voted last year to phase out the personal property tax, which businesses and cities said was burdensome to assess and administer. For most of the cities that collected personal property tax, most of that revenue will be replaced by a different tax. Note the word “most.”

At the same time, the state is reporting a modest surplus of $438 million, and the state’s rainy day fund is flush at about $500 million.

That’s a good thing — Snyder has lived up to his promise to balance Michigan’s budget, and the state is on far better financial footing than it was when he took office.

But what about cities and other local governments?

Snyder has said that communities must do more with less. They are. He has said communities must innovate, adopt best practices and share services. They are.

Snyder has also said that the budget pie is shrinking, and that communities must stop fighting over pieces of the same dwindling budget pie.

He’s right, again.

But at some point, he and the state’s other lawmakers need to face the fact that they’re exacerbating, rather than reducing, the financial stressors that local governments are feeling through the natural economic shifts and their own poor choices.

The state is becoming less and less of a partner in ensuring that local governments thrive, and more of an abettor to the financial chaos.

Snyder’s pie analogy was one of his strongest arguments during the 2010 elections — that as long as Michiganders are fighting over a smaller and smaller pool of resources, the fights would produce nothing in the way of progress.

Problem is, when it comes to cities, we can’t help but notice that Snyder is the one shrinking the pie.